


letters till dawn

by DgrayZephyr



Category: Banana Fish (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Angst, Letters, M/M, Post-Canon, asheiji, eiji's suffering as usual
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-25
Updated: 2019-01-25
Packaged: 2019-10-16 02:15:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 926
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17540735
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DgrayZephyr/pseuds/DgrayZephyr
Summary: “Is this Eiji Okumura?”“Max? It's me.”“So you've landed safely. That's… good to hear.”“I have, thank you for asking.”“...”“Is there something else you wanted to tell me?”“Eiji…”





	letters till dawn

He trudges home alone again. 

He walks through the front door, closes it behind him. He smiles at his mother, his sister, that smile that doesn't quite reach his eyes. _How's work? How's school? How are you feeling?_ He doesn't know how to answer those questions, doesn't understand how he could possibly bring himself to. 

So he says nothing. 

He is so, so tired. Drained of that exhilarating energy he'd come in contact with just a while ago, in America, running for his life, running for Shorter, Skip, and running for _Ash_. 

Emerald-eyed wonder. Kind soul that refused to see the light it could create in fear of the darkness that reigned. Lost, young man living only to be chased down. Eiji reached out to him, released the chains that bound him, taught him to love. 

And how he loved so. A love unlike any other, a love that could surpass boundaries, would etch a mark on their skin long after summer was over. 

Ash Lynx- Aslan Jade Callenreese. 

For love he died, and for love only. 

In the darkness of his room his heart clenches, yearning for that unfulfilled promise to have another chance at getting realized. His heart aches so much he squeezes his eyes shut in an attempt to escape the pain. 

Nothing lasts forever. Not affliction or dejection, but certainly not gaiety either. Everyone knows that. Eiji knows that. It was a miracle Ash had managed to survive in those kinds of conditions for so long. Then again, a miracle was exactly what he was. 

But even that wasn't enough. Ash, in all his wondrous, angelic glory, was only human. 

“See you soon.”

_Is that so…_

* * *

 

He sits by his unsteady wooden table, twirling his pen with his fingers and watching intently the metal glint with each oscillation. He zones out. The pen falls from his fingers. 

He can't sleep.

His flight back to New York is scheduled for the next day. He couldn't stand it, couldn't stand staying in Japan without any form of closure. 

 _Perhaps_ , a little voice in his head whispers, _perhaps you're hoping, like the coward you are, that it was all just a misunderstanding._

Eiji shakes his head. But he can't stop his heart from wishing. 

The moon looms high overhead, hidden partially by a cloudy sky. All is dark except for the dim flickering light of the navy-blue lamp atop the desk. It is deathly silent save the minute ticking of the clock that hangs at a corner of his room and gentle rasps of fingertips meeting wood. 

 _Tick_. 

The clock strikes 4. 

He picks up the pen and begins to write. 

_Dearest Ash,_

_Max told me what happened._

_For it all to end like this… I truly am speechless. It is not so much that I have nothing to say, rather that I cannot. I find myself in a position where I am incapable of expressing all these emotions in words- and in English no less. What should I do? Is there even anything I can do? Somehow it feels just like the first time you saved me. Me, the weak, naive japanese man that I was—and still am._

_There’s regret, a lot of it. Don’t get me wrong. I believe our meeting was not coincidence, but fate. It was fate, Ash, that I should have met you that day, that we should have grown so close in the matter of weeks. But it was also fate that I would not be able to save you from your future._

_I wanted to see you, Ash. Here, in Japan. I wanted to take you to Izumo, like how you brought us to Cape Cod. I wanted to teach you Japanese. I wanted you to meet my little sister, the one who gave me that ‘good luck’ charm. There was so much I wanted to do, and with you._

_But it seems ‘soon’ will last longer than I imagined. And now it feels like I'm back where I started- a 19 year old boy who'd just lost everything._

_I want to say I'm not upset, though in truth I can now barely remember the feeling of euphoria. I tell you selfishly that it is enough that we are friends, yet what of it now? Once I fought by your side to aid you, now I would love nothing more than to wreck anything and everything that has hurt you. Even if it meant I would be part of the rubble._

_Tell me I'm foolish. Tell me I'm just hurt. But that would mean getting hurt just a little bit more wouldn't make a difference, right?_

_You must think I'm insane. I don't understand anymore, Ash. Do you?_

_I write this letter to you, in hopes of closure, recovery, anything that could possibly take away this… feeling that is gnawing at my heart. I write despite knowing I shall never get a reply._

_I hope you'll forgive me for not being strong enough to protect you, for not loving you enough while I still could. I hope you'll forgive me for not being able to stay strong for you._

Eiji realizes far too late that tears had fallen on the letter, smudging the ink. They seep into the paper, and he lets them. Perhaps those tears will take with them a little bit of himself and engrave it into the letter in the way words cannot. 

They continue rolling off his cheeks. He signs off. 

_I hope you'll forgive me for not being to forget you._

_—Eiji._

**Author's Note:**

> consider this compensation for me not finishing bf angst week lol  
> also no I still don't have a proofreader. im sorry  
> Find me on:  
> todotodorito @ tumblr, twitter and instagram


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